Our DD is now just over 8 weeks old. At 10 days, her birth weight had dropped by 12.5% and we were told by the midwives and a paediatrician to give her formula top-ups.
For over 6 weeks, we were on a schedule of breastfeeding + bottle top-up + pumping every 3 hours (+ on-demand feeding inbetween if she was hungry earlier than the 3 hours). However, until last week DD was still very slow to gain weight. Our HV then told us to increase the amount of top-ups and last week, DD gained nearly 300g, which puts her back just over the 2nd percentile (she is tiny, although DP and I were quite small at birth and both still struggle to put on weight as adults).
Given this weight gain, the HV then suggested dropping a few feeds and only waking DD if she goes for longer than 5 hours, rather than a strict 3-hour schedule (which was close to giving us a breakdown!). We are now doing 6 top-ups a day but offering a bit more in case she is still hungry. The amount of supplement she is taking has dropped quite a bit over the last few days, but usually it's because she isn't finishing a whole bottle.
I would really like to get be able to EBF - does anyone have any success stories or tips on whether this can be achieved at this time?
The plan is to slowly reduce her top-up amount by one or two ounces every few days, to monitor her nappy output and give my boobs a chance to catch up. I am obviously worried that she will go back to not gaining weight properly and I am not sure we can rely on our HV to have the expertise to deal with this.
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Infant feeding
Dropping supplements to EBF - possible?
3 replies
ASheepLessOrdinary · 23/07/2016 20:33
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